I’m Paul Niehaus of GiveDirectly. We’re testing a basic income for the extreme poor in East Africa. AMA!

Charlotta_Clutter · 2016-05-31T16:03:52+00:00

Is there any outcome or condition under which you would stop this ten-year experiment early?

JurgenBIG · 2016-05-31T16:38:29+00:00

Hi Paul - Jurgen here, I am involved in the Finnish experiment. First off, kudos for the planned experiment - awesome stuff. I'm very interested in what we can take from the experiments conducted in Kenya (Namibia, India) to learn about basic income in the context of Europe, Canada and US. The big issue here is that both the policy and political context are so different. What do you think are main lessons we can expect to learn from the GiveDirectly experiment that transcend the particulars of a developing world context?

kyleissuper · 2016-05-31T16:10:57+00:00

Could you summarize, in as simple terms as possible, how your experiments are rigorous? How do we refrain from imposing our biased expectations on the experiments' conclusions?

americanstreet · 2016-05-31T16:09:20+00:00

In the test will the UBI be given to every adult, one per household or every person in the household regardless of age. If there is an age cut off, what will it be?

drivefaster · 2016-05-31T17:09:42+00:00

Will you open source your data?

Madhoman · 2016-05-31T16:05:16+00:00

What have been the biggest objections to both the concept and the organization?

TheresWald0 · 2016-05-31T17:02:25+00:00

A lot of extreme poverty exists in remote areas. Wouldn't localized inflation be a big problem? Could the price of basic goods go up and "cancel out" huge portions of cash transfers?

snaswa · 2016-05-31T16:05:08+00:00

) What is the minimum amount of cash that a household/individual can receive as Basic Income in the pilot study?

2) The pilot is planned for a period of 10 - 15 years....if in case, unfortunately someone enrolled in the study passed away in the study period, what happens to their money?

3) Where households fight over money coming in as Basic Income, like in a scenario where the wife feels she has been working so hard to win the bread for the family, where the husband has never been able to provide for the family, and so the wife feels she should control the family finances, but the husband feels that as (traditional) head of house he should be in charge, what kind of direction can GiveDirectly provide on this?

4) My village is poor and I know that people shouldn’t put it individual requests, but I feel this is a great opportunity to shed light on the poverty issues in my own home village of Namawanga in Western Kenya. People struggle and always have as far back as I remember. A lot of them with no dignity of life as a direct result of extreme poverty. A Basic Income would definitely greatly contribute to the overall improved quality of life, plus QALYs. Among biggest challenges at home for the poor village of about 3,000 hardworking people is lack a proper access to safe, clean, drinking water and income poverty. If you’re interested in a more detailed account of the poverty issues of my village please let me know so I can email it to a team member at GiveDirectly. It basically a summary of the priority needs and a crude situational analysis of the respective poverty issues.

Bernicus · 2016-05-31T16:03:31+00:00

Givewell suggests that donations to public health charities such as the Against Malaria Foundation - who distribute insecticide treated bed nets - and the Deworm the World Initiative or Schistosomiasis Control Initiative are ~5-10x more effective than donations GiveDirectly. Do you agree think that it is plausible that donations to public health charities do more good than donations to cash transfer charities? If so, are there additional, non-impact reasons for donating to GiveDirectly instead?

eirikm · 2016-05-31T16:34:54+00:00

Will the UBI be adjusted to fit the needs of individuals? For instance, will you give extra money to people with (more) children, and what about people who themselves are, or who have children who are, disabled?

sspdl · 2016-05-31T16:19:00+00:00

Based on your activities already, and discussions you have undoubtedly had with policy actors at various levels, are you getting any sense that institutional adoption either by countries themselves, or on a regional/international level is plausible, or is a Basic Income Guarantee limited in a development context in your opinion at the level of charitable giving?

Pan-Y-Agua · 2016-05-31T16:22:31+00:00

I have worked extensively in East Africa including at central-level (with governments) they are institutionally very weak particularly in terms of data harvesting and processing. How does GiveDirectly, if at all, propose the integration of BI at a national level without sacrificing your current levels of efficiency in terms of outputs/outcomes?

themandotcom · 2016-05-31T16:40:09+00:00

I've been giving to your organization since it was featured on planet money quite a few years back. Do you guys plan on performing more experiments with direct payments, like differing amounts or different payment periods?

because_its_there · 2016-05-31T17:03:55+00:00

Has Heifer International ever changed their stance on measuring their versus GiveDirectly's results? And was there any blowback (which may be too strong a word) on that discussion? (Edit: for reference, the NPR article Cash, Cows and the Rise of Nerd Philanthropy.) That one of Heifer's VP's said "We're not about experiments. These are lives of real people" might resonate with people that don't understand the science and think "experimenting" with people is bad.

Also, a comment: I loved Peter Singer's book, The Most Good You Can Do, and since reading it, I've changed my charitable giving to be almost exclusively GiveDirectly.

Pan-Y-Agua · 2016-05-31T16:02:52+00:00

Discussions surrounding basic income in Western contexts are usually framed and critiqued around the notion of deserving and undeserving recipients. How do we get past this notion and have meaningful discussions about the role and implementation of universal basic income?

Toxic_charity_ · 2016-05-31T19:47:35+00:00

Hi Paul, thank you for doing this. GiveDirectly is one of the charities I always use as an example to people when they ask about the dangers of charitable giving, so could I like share my experience and ask a question?

In 2015 I was doing charity work in rural Kenya, specifically Siaya county, Sigombre ward, in the village of Got Osimbo. It was during this time I learned how messy and complicated charity is. I had read a book called Toxic Charity, by Lupton, whose main premise is that most charitable actions end up harming the receivers in the long run. He goes through countless examples of harm, from loss of dignity, to reduced work ethic, to an attitude of dependency and entitlement toward the goods of others. I would also like to point to a documentary called Poverty Inc. that delivers a very similar message to that of Toxic Charity, but is set in Haiti.

In Kenya I met people with workable, fertile land who refused to farm because it was easier to parade their kids in front of charities and ask for food/clothing. Local farmers/cloth merchants hated whenever a charity came through because they could not compete with the flood of free food/clothing that came along into the market. There were some people who would befriend charities and act as if they were solely responsible for the presence of the charity. As soon as the charity left, those who wanted the charity back would have to give something to these people. I could give countless other examples, but I'll move onto how I believe GiveDirectly engages in this type of toxic charity. I worked in Sigombe for a few months, and got to know some of the locals quite well. I was helping them with farming activities, which involved helping them come up with a business plan. I was extremely shocked to realize how few records some (not all) of the people I was working with kept. I would ask how much money/time they spent on xyz capital/activity, and there wouldn't be an answer.

I remember bringing up toxic charity with one of farmers I was working with, when he mentioned your charity. He explained to me how men who got the money would spend it on alcohol, and that one person died of drunk driving. Women, sick of the country life, would take the money and their children, and leave their husband to try to start a new life in the city. More often than not, they wouldn't be able to make it for long in the city and they would either turn to prostitution or come back to the village and get abused by their husband.

While I did not directly witness the second harm, I definitely saw the first. The spending of charity money on harmful things by financially illiterate people was rampant.

What I am curious about is how aware you are of these things. If there are any statistics you could provide on the long-term quality of life for individuals who received resources from your charity, I would be greatly appreciative. If it does seem like people are being helped in the long run, then I apologize and will immediately start rooting for you guys.

jayareil · 2016-05-31T16:09:53+00:00

Is this test being conducted in coordination with leaders or groups from the area?

mitwhatiswhom · 2016-05-31T16:35:05+00:00

Do you find the mpesa platform that is almost ubiquitous in Kenya to be an aid in distribution of the basic income?

Also I just want to say I am a huge fan of the way you are going about this. We need to be looking for specific answers to specific questions and not looking for silver bullet solutions to poverty that are based in ideology and not data. Having worked in the area you are in now I can say it is almost always a more complex circumstance than an ideology is capable of addressing.

IknwURbtwhtamI · 2016-05-31T16:42:01+00:00

How would you define extreme poverty?

valedictorian09 · 2016-05-31T17:13:01+00:00

As a college student, what can I do to best qualify myself to work on projects like these in the future?

sambodhiprem · 2016-05-31T17:52:14+00:00

Hi Paul, will crypto currencies like Bitcoin help you and your work?

unreedemed1 · 2016-05-31T18:30:32+00:00

How do you deal with the cultural pressures around money? In this part of the world, it is assumed anyone with money should pay for their extended family completely. It is why people in my community rush to purchase things they don't necessarily need--so they don't have to give the money away. How do you deal with this (and other) cultural factors?

2noame · 2016-05-31T16:17:23+00:00

Hi Paul! Moderator of /r/basicincome here. Thank you for doing this AMA and thank you as well for investing such a great amount of resources (especially with your upcoming UBI experiment!) in the idea of simply trusting people with cash.

Just today Eduardo Porter over at the New York Times, posted what he considers a takedown of the idea of universal basic income, and titled it Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty. He is not the first to make such claims and will certainly not be the last, but what I find most telling is his and others' complete lack of evidence to support his/their view.

What I mean of course by lack of evidence is that he points to not a single cash transfer study. He doesn't say, a randomized controlled trial was done in "Location" where cash was given to the poor without strings and poverty actually went up. He doesn't say this of course because there is no such evidence. Where cash is given, cash reduces poverty.

With that said, my question to you is do you even know of any evidence where a RCT somewhere showed that cash grants did not reduce poverty? Is there a single example you can think of where increasing the incomes of the poor led to poor outcomes?

Eduardo Porter also makes the claim that giving cash somehow destroys the work incentive and yet again, your own data disproves this. People given cash in Uganda and Kenya actually work more because they're enabled to do so, especially via entrepreneurial ventures.

And that leads me to my second question. I've read some incredible examples of how people started their own businesses using GD's cash grants. What's your own personal favorite example of the creative use of cash to start a business that perhaps you would have never thought of?

egohara13 · 2016-05-31T17:05:52+00:00

Hey Paul, I've been a big fan since reading about GiveDirectly a few years ago. I live in Nairobi now, but before worked in healthcare in rural western Kenya. What is your M&E plan for dealing with the political landscape and tribal differences as the election cycle approaches? And do you define the UBI based off medium income in different areas? As a UBI for Nairobi would look very different than a UBI for West Pokot?

mySSnumis640936916 · 2016-05-31T17:22:20+00:00

I've heard a lot about your (very robust) UCT trials. My question: Has anyone has looked directly at the effect of remittance payments of immigrants working in wealthy countries? There would seem to be a lot of parallels and a large sample to draw from.

DeSchjizz · 2016-05-31T21:08:24+00:00

Hi Paul,

This sounds like a great initiative. Kudos to you and your team.

My question is what percentage of my donation would reach the recipient once administration and logistics costs are removed?

waterplace · 2016-05-31T16:31:16+00:00

Paul, what will your team do to avoid creating dependency? For example, are your beneficiaries being trained in financial literacy, savings, and how to invest those dollars in increasing their household livelihoods? What will those families do when your funds go away?

Creating a culture of dependency could do significant harm, unless at the same time you are helping the community become more self-sufficient, resilient, and sustainable.

eirikm · 2016-05-31T16:44:57+00:00

Is there any technological change that could have (or will have) a positive/negative impact on GD's model and/or UBI in Africa? If yes, which and why?

midgetcastle · 2016-05-31T16:55:22+00:00

What do you think is the best method to try and get a basic income up and running in western democracies?

Nick_Juma · 2016-05-31T17:13:12+00:00

If you could make one change in how your recipients spend their money once you give it to them, just by snapping your fingers and wishing, what would that change be?

And don't say nothing! I understand that you believe in direct no-strings-attached gifts.

thekingoffranceisbal · 2016-05-31T17:28:36+00:00

What are your thoughts about the effective altruism movement, and how its mission might intersect with GD's?

n0ttsweet · 2016-05-31T17:45:20+00:00

Has anyone considered using the total donated funds to set up an investment portfolio and use the income generated to fund people's "basic income"? Why dry up the well?

randomusername318 · 2016-05-31T18:03:13+00:00

Hi there, thanks so much for doing this AMA! I have considered giving to your charity however a friend who works in academia has raised concerns over;

That official university connected experiments need to first pass an ethics comity, whereas this would not be the case here
The lack of an independent auditing body for the project execution/results

Are you able to confirm/deny or provide further information on these aspects?

Thanks so much!

BandaGun · 2016-05-31T19:52:08+00:00

Your organization takes money from an exogenous source (donations) in order to fund the basic income. Obviously this won't work for developed countries because there is no exogenous donor base. Instead it would need to be endogenous sources (taxes, tariffs, etc.). What are the ramifications of an endogenous source compared to an exogenous source?

PaddingtonTheBeast · 2016-05-31T22:09:51+00:00

I don't know, if anyone has asked this before me, but here we go:

If you only give the minimum wage to certain people in an area - doesn't that mean that these people will become "average in wealth", while the people not included will drop further down the poverty list? (Meaning, the average wage in said country will increase putting the people off the experiment further down the list)

Second question: How can you make sure that prices of goods won't rise with the changes made on wages - (maybe) creating inflation - and making the poor people on minimum wage stay poor?

moneygivingman · 2016-05-31T16:11:39+00:00

Hi Paul,

I think this is a cool idea, but I'm curious what the thought process is about how something like this could scale globally. I guess it seems like it would only work as long as there is a dichotomy of inequality in which there exists a rich person to give and a poor person to receive. Is there any plan about how something like this would work in say, the United States? There are people sleeping all over the same streets billionaires drive on in Southern California, and this is in a country that has the ability to print the world's reserve currency at will.

I guess what I'm getting at is: given that people are greedy hoarders who don't generally care much for their fellow man, how can a project like this scale? Do you envision some sort of MMT powered utopia where the government takes on your role? Or do you see capitalism fixing this system by having private benefactors voluntarily participating in some sort of patronage system where Amazon Welfare Rewards will pay people $300 a week in exchange for running an Amazon OS and sharing their data?

P.S. Mr. Mathison would be so proud!

lyinggrump · 2016-05-31T15:55:56+00:00

What is it like to do this kind of test?

LivingInTheVoid · 2016-05-31T16:05:14+00:00

do you anticipate any way that dishonest people could exploit this idea? I ask because in every advancement of our society, there are people who will attempt to manipulate it for their own benefit.

InFirstGear · 2016-05-31T16:35:49+00:00

Do they have access to email, or text messaging? Or would that distort the experiment, if you introduced a donor-to-recipient connection?

dilatory_tactics · 2016-05-31T19:11:01+00:00

Have you considered calling it and structuring it as a dividend rather than income?

Giving people an ownership stake in the wealth, resources, and technology of a nation and of our species, and having that wealth pay a dividend, has different implications both psychologically and from a resource-limitation perspective than "basic income," which makes people out to be parasites.

Wealthy people who live off of wealth dividends are fine, but our species hates people who are painted as parasites.

Nosiege · 2016-05-31T22:10:26+00:00

So if you're not a government, and only testing it, what happens when you run out of money, or end the test?

ea2u · 2016-05-31T16:57:51+00:00

How much do you donate to your charity?

Nick_Juma · 2016-05-31T16:05:32+00:00

[deleted]

UglyMuffins · 2016-05-31T16:53:08+00:00

This doesn't seem like a fair representation of how basic income would work in the real world.

For one, the money doesn't come from donations but from the government who distributes money from taxes.

Do the recipients even know that this 'free money' is coming from donations rather than from the government? I reckon their spending usage would differ based on how they know where it came from.

2016-05-31T17:13:23+00:00

So you're seeing if a UBI would be feasible if it could be funded entirely by donations from random people? Isn't one of the larger problems with the idea that money has to come from somewhere, and isn't that being ignored here?

Amongus · 2016-05-31T16:04:28+00:00

Any relation to Dave Niehaus? Former broadcaster for the seattle mariners?

Radu47 · 2016-05-31T16:24:43+00:00

What would you suggest is the crux of Basic Income resistance amongst humans in a general sense? Factors you've observed over time that contribute to the inertia we see at the moment. Thanks again.

brandywine42 · 2016-05-31T17:27:44+00:00

Are you afraid of any negative side effects of this program?

forgetful_storytellr · 2016-05-31T17:47:30+00:00

What kind of research did you do prior to launching this campaign?

From what I understand, via a firsthand account, The culture of money in East and Sub-Saharan Africa is very different than in the Western World. Specifically, that the concept of "saving" money is not real. What tends to happen is that they spend whatever money they have on the most immediate need of themselves, a friend, or a neighbor, regardless of long term costs.

Have you guys found the same in your research, and if so how do you plan to control spending to ensure that money is being spent in the most efficient areas rather than the most immediate?

2016-05-31T18:35:45+00:00

[removed]

LumenSand · 2016-05-31T20:01:00+00:00

Can you explain how this project relates to basic income?

Since all you are doing is collecting donations and handing them out. Where basic income would entail, in your example, taxing East African citizens that earn more than $1/day and giving it to those who make less than $1/day. And the taxation under basic income would not be voluntary. So any result that you collect on you project will not apply to basic income, but would apply to charities in general.

2016-05-31T20:27:40+00:00

How is any data you collect supposed to apply to first world countries?

2016-05-31T22:17:32+00:00

Hello, as seen in the photo Mpesa is a big deal. I work with cryptocurrency and believe that this will be the technology that allows you to complete your goal. What do you think about this?

Stone_LX9 · 2016-06-01T00:04:16+00:00

Do you think we should give them free condoms? Seems like we've been giving them money and food for years. Then they just have even more children and nothing ever fucking changes.

RedRiverBlues · 2016-06-01T00:38:02+00:00

What's the point of this exercise if it doesn't address the single largest concern: it can't possibly be self sustaining and that it would devastate an economy? You're just injecting donated money into poor communities. Of course you'll have good outcomes. In reality, where will that money come from?

DavidDann437 · 2016-06-01T03:45:58+00:00

Should we call this basic income welfare?

Date	Time	Person	Description	Remind
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